Hi
I can only relay my experience on the southern sites along the RN7, and the Andasibe area from just a brief two week trip in Dec 2010. We didn’t use a bird guide, but hired a driver who knew the sites we visited and could get contact with the relevant national park local guides on arrival – he seemed to know most of them personally in any event (details in the thread below this one).
I dont think we particularly missed much we tried for as a result of this approach, but we didnt do all the spots along this route for endemics, the most frustrating aspect for me was missing an opportunity to go to the sites south of Tulear on account of having to get an internal flight a day early.
To add some more detail from my trip:
For the Parks visited we only enquired about guides upon arrival, but it was outside (just) the main birding season. This was very useful, the parks were quiet and guides were all available, and luckily rains had not prevented access (to Mantadia). You can read the various trip reports and come up with names, here are some thoughts:
For the Andasibe area Patrice is an excellent and hardworking guide, knows his area extremely well, is a superb birder/naturalist and did not overcharge/add any extras on – even after working long days. It is very easy to see why he is number 1 choice, and he was in my opinion the best local guide we used in Madagascar. He also mentioned to me that he travels to the north on occasion with tour groups, private individuals/professionals, and government surveying etc, so knows northern sites (Pochard, Owl, Eagle) too – not sure about Masoala. He also gave local sites along the river crossings for the Pratincole, but we dipped (didnt give any time/effort really though).
In Ranomafana there are a number of names cropping up in the trip reports and we spoke with a couple during our visit. Fidi is the traditional local guide for visiting birders for a long time, and there are good and not so good comments from his guiding out there. We did employ him and he brought along his wife, Sabine, who has a good knowledge of the wider wildlife (not so much birds). Some of the younger guides mentioned in trip reports seemed to do well too, so there are options here. Fidi was more expensive than Patrice, and more expensive than the other guides in Ranomafana.
We skipped Isalo NP because of the expense compared to Hotels on the main road, and time constraints, but there are only a couple of sp. here that are prime reasons for visit (Harrier, Thrush).
In the decidous forests of Zombitse we used two guides who were just hanging around the car park area by a hut. Didn’t particularly ask for two, it just sort of fell that way as these things can do. We arrived afternoon for walk and then picked them up from the village west of the forest dawn the next morning as well. Unfortunately I never recorded their names, I guess they are an everyday fixture, but they again had good knowledge of the local specialities, eg Coua’s including Giant, Greenbul, and regular owl roost etc.
In Ifaty, Freddy was coming out top on the recent trip reports, he is I believe, part of the Mossa clan. We arrived in town and asked our driver to let him know we were around. We hired him for the day (although he was reluctant to do the afternoon and eventually we let him go so long as we could potter around the nature reserve on our own). Again his guiding involved both him and a relative (Mossa’s brother I think) working the small nature reserve for all the usual specialities – they certainly know how to find them. We also birded parts of the Spiny Forest and coast along the coast road – relatively good for mopping up the coastal species not usually seen in the nature reserve.
Considering what species may be trickier to find outside the parks present along this route, this could include the Harrier, swamp sp such as Swamp Warbler, Snipe and Grey Emutail, the coral rag specialities south Tulear, and general Spiny Forest & coastal species seen by groups outside the Ifaty nature reserve.
Many trips seem to see the snipe close to Ranomafana and I asked Fidi about this and the Emutail. We went to see the Emutail (and Swamp Warbler), but didn’t make time for the snipe – Fidi mentioned that he knew the local sites though.
On this route, the Harrier and the Coral Rag and other desert/Spiny forest & coast specialities around Tulear would therefore be your principal reasons for hiring a bird guide to be with you 24/7. I would suggest that another possibility is you could probably hire Freddy if you were concerned about the Coral Rag/Spiny Forest species/sites, eg he gave us local gen on recent plover sightings. The Harrier is probably a bit hit and miss as it has declined so much, and a guide may be of help with this sort of species, but they may not necessarily be 100% successful (if you know what I mean). The Cuckoo-hawk may also fall in this tricky, luck required, category.
The African Bird Club report mentioned in the other thread is of use for detailed site information. As a base any minor changes from recent trip reports can be factored in.
I cannot particularly help with other parts of the country. I guess an unknown is probably the Pochard area in the north as its not national park. But see later comments here:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=210527
At the end of the day any additional bird guide knowledge would undoubtedly be of help to root out the certain specialities; but the tricky ones in the rainforest, western decidous forests national parks & spiny forest (and the principal ones at that – Ground Rollers, Couas, Asitys, Mesites, Vangas Nightjars, Kingfisher etc) are mostly covered by local park guiding options that know the stakeouts/sites.
Hopefully that contains some useful bits for you,
